The Lord Mohammed El Sareuk was a man of sixty, slightly built, fanatic-faced, whose body always seemed on the point of disintegrating from sheer concentration of energy. His boots were of red Cordovan leather worked with gold thread; his clothing was blue silk and rose samite, topped by the green turban of a Hadji; under the soft robes he wore gold-washed Turkish light armor, and over the whole outfit a black Bedouin burnous. He was weaponed well: from his girdle hung a Damascus steel scimitar, and a beautiful gold-etched steel knife with a silver hilt and a ruby in the pommel. Once this man had led a great harka in the forces of Saladin; but love of Godwin had turned him to a rover, an adventurer who called no tent his own and no man his peer save the tall young Englishman he now addressed. "What is it, Godwin? Twenty-five leagues to Alexandria, or eighty-odd to Richard the Lion Heart in Jaffa?" The girl spoke before Godwin could answer. "Oh, heavens, uncle 'tis the twenty-five to the plague ship, without a doubt, because what would Godwin want with a thousand Crusaders at his back when he can wade in single-handed against an unknown number of enemies and grab the glory all for himself? An Englishman won't fight if he can't fight against odds, after all. Need you ask such a silly question?" The girl, now: as tall and lovely a piece as ever came from the union of a crusading British knight and a Saracen lass who traced descent from Solomon. Her eyes were violet, pure clear liquid violet such as is seen once in a thousand years; her lips were sensuous, full and red; her hair was a rainbow-flashing mass of ink-black curls. Of her complexion nothing derogatory could be said, and of her full-breasted figure even less. She wore copper and cream-colored robes of as fine and yet tough silk as you might find anywhere in the world of 1191, with a black turban to which she managed to give a jaunty and most un-Moslem-like air. Once this girl had been a sorceress, and controlled the entire tribe of djinn by virtue of a golden sigil and ring bequeathed her by her mother; her home and heritage and much of her power she had given up, to be a nomad and traipse about the world, all for love of Godwin.